


Tuffs, Patches, And Ruffles

by SomebodysSherlock



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Black mark AU, Gen, Light Angst, Nonbinary Character, One Shot, Other, Romantic Soulmates, Soul Mate AU, Soulmates, gentle angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23135266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomebodysSherlock/pseuds/SomebodysSherlock
Summary: Soulmate AU - A black mark appears where your soulmate will first touch you.Logan always tells people his mark is on his thigh, much to high for him to appropriately show anyone. His best friends know better, but that's why they're best friends isn't it? With a hardliner, traditional father and an equally traditional mother he constantly feels like he won't that he can't, live up to their hopes for him. He fears he'll never give his mother grand kids or take after his father and lead a family.Enter Sage.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 4





	Tuffs, Patches, And Ruffles

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings! I've seen this idea around but I haven't actually seen a full story on it. (Not saying one doesn't exist just that I haven't seen one.) There will be some definition in the notes at the end. Enjoy the read!

A standard alarm cut through the stagnant morning silence, well _almost_ silence. Logan sighed as he laid for a moment; listening to the distant sounds of his mother in the kitchen. He sat up, reaching to open his blinds. Early morning light streamed through the window. Another sighed escaped as Logan stood, running a hand through his dark, patchy hair. He quickly fixed his covers, pulling them tight enough to bounce a coin off of, before proceeding to his regular routine. First was clothes, basic dark jeans paired with a baseball shirt with blue sleeves. Hair was next, a simple comb would do for today. Grabbing his prepacked backpack, the teen headed for the kitchen.

“Good morning Logan,” his mother greeted as he came to the bottom of the stairs.

Logan shared his mother's slim form and angular face, unlike her sandy hair and dark brown eyes. Other traits also set him apart from her. A rain-bow mark barely peaked out of here t-shirt sleeve. 

“Morning,” he replied heading for the breakfast his mother had laid out today.

Cinnamon-sugar toast tempted him to the table with a sweet smell. Two slices along with a glass of orange juice were quickly placed in front of him. Movement on the stairs drew Logan’s attention.

“Good morning Ella.”

“Mornin’ Mum,” Logan’s little sister slurred, still wrapped up in her blanket.

An eye roll was his morning greeting. She was in grade six for crying out loud; she shouldn’t be aloud to walk around like a hooded rapscallion anymore. She was a near mini-me for their father, with broad shoulders and dark hair. Her brown eyes and face resembled their mother. Logan’s father arrived just as his mother finished telling him off for being ‘rude to his baby sister so early’, whatever that meant.

“Good morning dear,” his mother greeted.

“Morning,” his father replied. Turning towards the seated kids he repeated himself, “morning.”

Ella’s sleepy greeting was mumbled out as Logan gave a wave of acknowledgment. He finished off his toast, with breakfast done he headed to the bathroom to wash up and brush his teeth. Then it was off to school.

***

Logan sat at his usual desk; he had planning for first block. It was boring, but a mandatory course for all grade ten students. Steel blue eyes surveyed the class. It seemed they had gained two new students over spring break. One of which was a very nice-looking girl. Before Logan could think on that thought any further, he was interrupted by a gruff voice.

“Hey Logan, how was your break?”

Logan huffed fondly, “Mark you were at my house three days ago.”

Mark puffed his cheeks out, “Man you suck at small talk.”

The pair chuckled. Mark was one of Logan’s good friends, maybe even the best. He did know Logan’s secret after all. Mark was a big guy, one that you look at and associate with football or hockey. He might have been on of those guys if he didn't have such an affinity for mechanics. They had known each other since primary. ‘Thick as thieves’ their mothers would say.

“Did you see the new kids?” Mark inquired. “I heard the girl’s name is Sage.”

Logan shrugged, “neat. Hear anything about the boy?”

“Nope, but Toby is talking to him right now.”

Both boys looked over, eyes sliding over another pair, Toby and the new kid. Their gaze landed on the cluster of girls surrounding Sage. Her hand was brushed with black marks all over. Sage had dark amber hair and sunken, chuck hazel eyes, as well as a sturdy build. The boys' glance turned to full on starring as Sage pulled back the front of her bob-cut to reveal shaved sides. She beamed happily as all the girls cooed.

“Damn,” Mark spoke.

“Yeah,” was all Logan could get out before the teacher called the class into order.

Mr. Roberts smiled as the teens filtered into their seats, “Good morning class, welcome back. I’m sure all of you are ecstatic to be back in class.” Groans echoed through the room. “Yes, yes, well I’m glad to be back at least. Now before we move onto to what everybody did over break, I would like to introduce you to some new students. Would you like to introduce yourselves? How about you tell us your names and one fact about yourself?”

The boy stood first, a black mark lining his jaw, “Hey, my name’s Mathew, but I go by Matt. I, uh, I moved here from Fort. Elmer, which is like, five hours south west from here.”

The teacher nodded as the girl stood up, “Hello, my name’s Sage, and I go by they/them pronouns.”

Sage motioned to a pin on her- their? jacket. A small murmur of confusion flickered through the room. A couple pins resided on the jacket. There was an avenger one, one with a white "t" on a blue background, one with different coloured stripes, and one that simply said “they/them” in purple writing on a yellow background. Mr. Robert’s voice was drowned out by Logan’s confusion.

***

The rest of the day went by with minimal confusion. Logan spotted his mom’s car as he exited the school. He told her about his day, with the occasional comment from Ella. He didn’t mention Sage’s fact.

***

Mr. Roberts had a seating plan the next day, something about people talking to much. The desks were in five columns, with the desks being paired so that each row had two desks, then a space, then two desks, and so on. There were squares with names on the board. Logan quickly found his name then glanced to the one beside it. Logan found his seat… beside Sage. He didn’t dislike h- **them** by any means he just… didn’t know how to address them. Should he treat them like a boy or girl? Logan didn’t know what to think, and if there was one thing Logan did not like it was not knowing.

“Hello, what’s your name?” Logan flinched out of his thoughts at their voice.

It was sweet and carefree. It even lightened Logan’s mood a bit.

“Logan; You’re Sage correct?” the teen spoke clearly, fidgeting with his watch.

They hummed and nodded an affirmative, “yep. So, what do you do for fun around here?”

Logan groaned internally, _why small talk?_ “well I work at a mill just out of town. It’s just cleaning, but it’s good pay.”

Sage snickered, “That’s what you do for fun?”

Logan balked for a moment, “Well- I- I mean-”

They waved their hands,” no, no, sorry, I was just teasing, but if you’re interested my parents are having a potluck this weekend. It’s supposed to be so we can get to know the neighbors, but they said I can invite as many class mates as I wanted.”

Logan blinked for a moment, “I’ll have to clear it with my parents, but sure-”

“Sweet!” Sages face lit up,” I posted the date, time, and address on my Instagram, here.”

With that they handed him a slip of paper with an Instagram handle. The pair were interrupted from further conversation by the bell.

***

“Yo!” Mark’s voice called from behind him.

Logan turned from the cafeteria doors to see his friend running up to him, followed by another tall, lanky teen.

“Hey Mark, Elliot,” Logan greeted with a nod; walking into the cafeteria.

Elliot was a lanky brunet and stupidly quite for how tall he was. He was a friend, but definitely not as good as Mark, he didn’t know Logan’s secret after all. Mark grinned as the trio sat down with their food.

“So,” he started deviously, “I saw you got sat by Sage.”

Logan quirked an eyebrow in suspicion, “yes?”

“Did they invite you to their party this weekend?”

“Yeah, did you?”

“Duh,” Mark laughed. “They invited me yesterday; we have robotics together.”

Logan turned to Elliot, “have you gotten invited?”

“Not directly, Ashley said I could probably come, but it doesn’t matter because I’m going camping this weekend,” the boy replied softly.

“Yeah, I have work on Saturday, so I can only go for the beginning of it,” Mark replied, turning slightly to address someone. “Hey Toby!”

Said teen came over waving at the trio, “Hey guys, do you mind if me and Matt sit with you?”

“All good man,” Mark assured. “Where is greenie anyway?”

“He’s in the lunch line.”

The group chuckled.

“Rip,” Logan winced sympathetically, “are you sure he’s actually going to get a chance to sit down?”

This sent another round of chuckles through the group.

***

Logan had Korean on Tuesdays; this was an expected event. Sage was in his class; this was not expected. They were going over past tense verbs today. Sage was pretty quiet. Their pronunciation was a little ruff, but they wrote beautifully. Their hangul was beautiful and effortless. Logan shook his head. He should stop creeping on the new kid. He quickly refocused, turning to practiced with his partner as the teacher instructed.

***

Logan was quickly learning to love Korean, even if he only had it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was steadily rising in his favourite classes. Right now, they were working on ordering food and shopping at markets, so the had a market set up. Half the class was chosen to be vendors and half for shoppers. Sage was ‘running’ a fruit stand. Logan went up to ‘buy’ a banana, but-

“Hey Logan,” Sage giggled, “what should you do if a watermelon sues you?” They paused for dramatic affect. “수박!” (Pronounced subak, or Korean for watermelon.)

They held up some watermelon slices. Logan grinned and quickly ‘bought’ some watermelon. All in all, it was a good way to end the day.

***

The rest of the week went by in a blur. Logan shared three class with Sage, planning, world history, and Korean. Logan would nearly forget they were there, only to be reminded by their sweet voice, chirping out an answer for the teacher. And Mark, the ever annoyingly observant friend he was, began to take notice of Logan’s… peculiar focus.

“You’re totally falling for them.”

Mark had come over Friday so that Logan could help him with his earth science terms, the first test looming over head for Monday. Logan blinked at the comment.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he denied.

Mark rolled his eyes, “Really? You are seriously going to just ignore it? That’s healthy.”

This time it was Logan’s turn to roll his eyes.

“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” he reiterated again.

Mark rolled over on the bean bag to face his friend.

“Dude every time they talk in class you perk up like some one flipped a switch in your brain. Not to mention that time you spaced out staring at them at lunch. Face it, you’re hooked dude.”

“No, I’m not!” Logan defended adamantly.

“Uh, yeah, you are!”

“Fine, even if I am why does it matter? They would just be unhappy with me!”

The boys’ voices were quickly rising in volume.

“Says who? They seem to notice you too.”

“No! Don’t even say that! You know why! Out of anyone you should know!” Logan deflated. “You’ve seen their hand. They have someone for them, but it’s not me.”

A dense quite filled the room.

Mark sighed, “I know, I’m sorry.”

Logan shook hid head, “it’s whatever dude. I just… I don’t know.”

Mark stood up, “you know what? Let’s go for a ride. I’ve got my bike, go get yours.”

So they rode, hard and fast on the twisty forest trails near Logan’s house. They rode till it was dark and both boys where sweaty, tired, and covered in enough mud to fill a bath tub. Mark’s phone buzzed with another message from his mom.

“I should get going. I told her I was on my way home ten minutes ago,” he admitted. “See you tomorrow, yeah?”

Logan gave a small nod, and with that the boys parted ways, each heading home to their respective homes.

***

Twelve o’clock came much to early on Saturday, at least in Logan’s opinion. He awkwardly stood with a plate of cookies wrapped up on a paper plate. His mom had made them this morning to take to the potluck.

“Remember to be polite, but if anyone starts being… unruly or starts influencing you text or call me, okay?” she reminded.

Logan sighed. His mother was well meaning, but he had heard the hushed squabble between his parents yesterday. They almost hadn’t let him come. His father was worried about Sage’s family ‘influencing him’. Now Logan may be a teenager, but he wasn’t dumb, he understood his father didn’t exactly approve of… well, of Sage. His father was… traditional, not enough that Logan was worried but it was still a point of contention.

The teen followed the sign directing him to the backyard. It was a peaceful chaos, with many kids, teens, and adults congregating together. Logan quickly found Matt and Toby over by the drink table. They explained how most of the teens were inside hanging out downstairs in the games room, and they were just out here to grab punch. As Logan entered the room, he noticed most of his planning class was here along with a few others. There were people playing ping-pong, smash on a small TV, darts, and what looked like a game of truth or dare.

Toby eventually dragged him and Matt into the circle, “Come on it’ll be fun.”

Many dares were given out; eventually the game digressed into a game of spin the bottle. Logan’s already testy heart rate went through the roof as Sage was handed the bottle. The group cheered as they spun, Logan quickly stood up as it slowed dangerously close to him.

“I’mgoingtogetasnack,” he forced out as he turned to leave.

“Hold on! The bottle landed on you!” another kid spoke up, Rylie he thinks her name is.

“No, he doesn’t have to-” Sage tried to defend.

“Yeah he does!”

Logan continued to walk until he was struck still by the next comment.

“It’s because he likes you, but you can’t like him because you’re not soulmates. He doesn’t even have one!”

Logan doesn’t even know who said it.

Toby jumped to his defence, “of course he as one! It’s just high on his thigh! Just because he doesn’t want to show you doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one!”

“So you’ve seen it?”

Toby hesitated for a moment.

With that Logan ran. It was getting dark so most people had come inside. Logan quietly made his way outside to the backyard. He vaulted the back fence to bushy area behind it. He sat on a log in the ditch between two properties. He broke down.

_How could this happen people? Was he that obvious? Did someone tell? Did everybody know? Why did he run?! He could have just played off!_

A sickeningly gentle voice sounded off in the haze of fading light, “Logan?”

He felt like he had whiplash from how fast he went from breathing to quickly to not breathing at all. He rubbed at his face. When had he started crying?

“Hey,” suddenly they were in front of him, “it’s okay. I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have even played that game; it never ends well.”

Logan couldn’t even look at them. _Way to go you embarrassed yourself in front of everybody at the party **and** made the host feel like they had to comfort you. **Great** job._

“The party was almost over anyway. Pick up time was in like twenty minutes anyway. The others agreed they were ready to go home. Listen Madison doesn’t even know what she’s talking about; who cares if you don’t have a soul mate? It doesn’t make you any less of a person.” The attempted comfort felt like someone was twisting a knife through his chest.

“Hey,” the gentle, and oh so sweet, voice repeated, “look at me.”

Logan glumly looked up, face wet and eyes red. He felt disgusting. _What would Dad think?_

 _Men don’t cry,_ came a harsh, but familiar, voice in his head.

“Chin up, it’ll be okay,” Sage continued to comfort, as they sat beside him.

“I’m sorry,” he groveled pathetically.

“Hey-hey no, it’s okay I promise. Don’t worry, we all have bad days. Trust me I’ve had my share.”

Without even thinking they put a hand to Logan’s head, ruffling his hair. Logan grew confused as they suddenly stopped with their hand still sitting on his head, entangled his hair.

“Sage?” he questioned.

They slowly pulled their hand back, revealing a rainbow painted mark. The colours were dull in the twilight haze, but it definitely was no longer the black smear it had always been. Logan was hit with every single emotion at once happiness, fear, love, anger, but most of all relief, overwhelming, all encompassing relief. _He_ _wasn’t_ _alone_.

“Guess it really doesn’t matter what Madison said,” Sage commented with a dazed chuckle, “because she was definitely wrong.”

“I-” Logan choked on air, water works threatening to begin again. “I hoped against hope that you could be my soul mate, but-”

“You never thought it could happen,” Sage read his mind.

The pair sat their quietly, just watching, breathing, living, as the world fully greeted the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Hangul - the Korean alphabet.


End file.
